"How do I extract the data from SAP? Login to SAP?"

eSpline has an application called “Avenue from VC” for that, with several techniques available depending on how much setup you are willing to do - from a zero-footprint extractor that uses SAP Java Connector to IPC knowledgebase imports to ALE/IDocs/Product Data Replication (PDR).  

Login to SAP is accomplished either interactively, or from cleartext passwords in jcoDestination files on the server.

"What is translated?  What do we do if we use esoteric features of SAP VC that you don’t translate?"

Structural model objects such as characteristics and values, classes, materials, their text descriptions, configuration profiles, variant tables.

Behavioral model objects such as object dependencies (selection conditions, procedures, preconditions (but not actions)) and constraints and their constraint nets.

The Avenue Health Check scans your VC model to find and report on incompatibilities with Oracle CPQ | Big Machines or the Avenue Translator.  Should your models require translation of an object or pattern that is not currently provided, simply contact us and provide an example, along with a required-by date.  If the feature is already in our Product Roadmap and meets your requirement date, we will let you know.  Otherwise you can request the feature be made available as a custom development.

"We do not use KMAT materials, all our VC materials are HALB, will that make a difference?"

We sometimes say "KMAT" but mean "KMAT or other configurable material type", so configurable HALBs are okay.

"Can we only pull the sales part of the data and not even pull the BOM?"

Yes.  You can choose to extract either no BOM or only BOM's in a specific plant or plants with a given BOM usage, and only sales-relevant BOM items.

"Can you please supply me with how this front end will work for us?"

We assume by “this front end” you mean the Oracle CPQ | BigMachines configurator user interface.  If you define a “user interface design” in SAP,  including logical groupings of characteristics that are displayed in separate tabs, we plan to translate and make this available in Oracle CPQ.  Other features of SAP user interface designs eg. pushbuttons, input validation are by request.  We are also looking into ways of preserving user interface config that you define on the Oracle CPQ side as well as merging the SAP UI designs and Oracle CPQ | BigMachines UI config. 

If on the other hand by “this front end” you mean the Avenue Translator UI, please see the User’s Guide or Translation Tutorial for details of how an “Admin” currently runs the translator.

"When I use the Translator, does this create a file on my local machine (or network drive if that is where I save it to) and then upload the data into Oracle CPQ | BigMachines from this file?"

Yes, currently the integration of translated models from eSpline's Avenue Translator to Oracle CPQ | BigMachines uses zip files that are downloaded from the Avenue Portal and then upload to Oracle CPQ | BigMachines.  We are now using web services to reduce the number of manual steps and automate the process.

Avenue Translator has two options.  One is when you are in the eSpline Avenue Portal cloud (SaaS) or on a server at your site. In either case, there is nothing that is created on your SAP servers.  It would be on a separate Microsoft server if on your site.  We extract the a KMAT or any configurable product in a read only mode from SAP, analyze the date, parse it and create XML in the Avenue Portal/Translator server. Then translate and use XML again for the import to Oracle CPQ | BigMachines.